I subscribe to Marc Lichtenfeld’s “Lightning Trend Trader” service, and I haven’t seen any evidence that Marc actually claims to have “insider” information. If he does have such access, he’s certainly using it to very poor affect. Prime example: He recommended puts on MannKind back in March, because he was virtually certain the FDA would reject one of its drugs, and then wrote that he was “stunned” when an FDA committee voted to approve the drug in April – the puts expired worthless. I posted the following elsewhere on Stock Gumshoe today: My impression is that Marc Lichtenfeld of Oxford… Read more »

Alison: Marc Lichtenfeld is talking about his results during the year 2013 – his “service” was actually called “Healthcare Profits Alert” at that time. I have no way to check his claims, so I have to take it (absent evidence otherwise) that he is at least being somewhat accurate. Because the service was not attracting enough subscribers, Marc’s service was “rebranded” in Feb. 2014 as “Lightning Trend Trader.” Whether this makes it a “new” service, or just an essentially uninterrupted continuation of the old one – well, certainly new subscribers can only go by “Lightning Trend Trader” results to judge… Read more »

Found this post from Observer useful info. Does anyone have insights on the most recent Lichtenfeld promo of 3 bio techs? My summary below: Mark Lichtenfeld is promoting with Oxford Club his ‘Lightening Trend Trader’ strategy for a $1495 VIP service. His ‘lightening strike’ is a catalytic event driving average 100% growth every 4 months, mainly bio techs. Currently, he is promoting 3 opportunities to entice new subscribers: First is a $6 billion California-based ‘team player’ (collaboration agreements with AstroZenica, Biogen, Bristol Meyers Squib, Eli-Lilley, ..Genzyme and GlaxoSmithKline), and a pipeline of 28 cardiovascular, neurological and metabolic diseases, as well… Read more »

Lichtenfeld has been all over the map in terms of what kinds of stocks he teases, from biotechs to more staid income investments. Haven’t looked at these yet, though the first one is very likely Isis Pharmaceuticals… which was a $6 billion company three months ago but is a $3 billion company now.

Living near San Diego I bought on the news @ $27, sold @ $40 then watched it soar to $60 saying ” You fool” all the way up. However a couple weeks ago I saw it @ $ 23 so rebought planning on selling around $40. It’s hitting a lot of resistance trying to make $30 so we shall see.

Craig: See my comment above to Alison. I can’t easily connect the descriptions you mention with any companies Marc has recommended in Lightning Trend Trader – though it’s a little hard wading through all of his “alerts” to try to find wording that might match your summaries. If he has actually recommended any of those companies, they quickly dropped out of his “portfolio” when they hit their 25% sell stops (I have copies of every one of his recommendations). He has definitely not recommended ISIS Pharmaceuticals as part of “Lightning Trend Trader.” Since he has been doing so abysmally with… Read more »

These teaser ad pitches sometimes include stock stories that are no longer included in the actual newsletter’s portfolio, though that’s fairly rare — stories that work to get investors’ attention and sell newsletters are re-used all the time, often for many years, though those are more typical from the newsletters that are longer-term focused. In any case, any biotech-focused newsletter that holds anything but the largest companies and uses tight trailing stops of anything less than 50% would have likely sold out of almost their entire portfolio in March or April this year.

Lightning Trend Trader focuses on small companies with new products in R&D, and uses a 25% trailing stop – and suffered the fate noted by Travis for biotechs in March/April and even May. Several of Oxford Club’s “premium” services have found it impossible to live up to their widely exaggerated hype this year, even outside the biotech sector. Alex Green’s “True Value Alert” is another (like Lightning Trend Trader) that in 2014 has vastly underperformed its hype to “provide dozens of opportunities to double your money all year long.” It hasn’t provided a SINGLE one in months.

Dear Observer I wouldn’t hold your breath about getting out of Oxford Club. I bought into their programme as a initiate investor and tried several of their newsletters on the understanding that I could get out and have my money back “with no questions asked”. I have written them four times and tried to phone them, only to be told that I must phone them, “because of the nature of your e-mails.” well when I finally got the opportunity to call them, (I work in remote areas), within their state open times, I was told that “the office is closed… Read more »

Mike: that hasn’t been my experience with Oxford Club at all. I entered subscriptions to the “premium” services True Value Alert and Lightning Trends Trader and got full refunds during my “trial” period with no problem at all. (As well as refunds for “less premium” services Goldstone Strike and Peak Energy.) If it’s still an issue with you, try sending an e-mail to nhurd@viptradinggroup.com. I have major issues with the way Oxford Club hypes its premium services – just as absurdly as is typical for the “industry” when they claim the high moral ground about their products – but I… Read more »

Greta: I’m not sure I see what the point is in trying to guess the 4 “great opportunities” being hyped by Marc Lichtenfeld. As I listed above, he has an abysmal record so far with his Lightning Trend Trader service. And ISIS and ARQL are NOT among his recommendations, in any event. (They must be REALLY poor choices if they haven’t even made it into his dismal “service.”) In fact, in looking at his archive of recommendations, it appears he has never recommended ISIS or ARQL as part of his service – it was called Firstline Investor Alert from Jan… Read more »

I have been considering subscribing to ML’s Lightning trend since I came across his video in early June ’14. I easily figured out his main teaser teaser to be GWPH and on 6/4/14 bot at $67.50. I decided to be disciplined rather than greedy and sold less than 2 weeks later 6/17/14 at $90.25 for a 33% profit. (It closed yesterday at >$96.) On 6/6/14 bot ISIS at $30. It closed yesterday at $35.44 On 6/11/14 bot ARQL at $4.05. it is $1.46 now . Needless to say I was impressed, and looked to Gumshoe to see if anyone figured… Read more »

Curiouser and curiouser: as a subscriber, I can reaffirm, with absolute certainty, that ISIS and ARQL have ‘never’ been part of Marc’s portfolio – I haven’t searched back for OMED, so am not sure about that one, but it has certainly not been recommended by Marc since at least Feb. 2014 in his actual portfolio and periodic “alerts.” It seems to defy “logic” for companies hyped so heavily in such Oxford Club promo material not to be included in the respective portfolio – as Travis said, it’s rare – but I know of two other cases like that with another… Read more »

Many thanks to Observer for a very useful post. I’ve learned to avoid any service that advertises great results but will not state a verifiable trading record outright (i.e. number of recommendations, actual recommended dates in and out and real gain/loss for each). It would have been very little additional effort for Mr. Lichtenfeld to simply state “I made x number of recommendations in 2013 with “y” losers and “z” winners” followed by a graphic of the actual recommendations/results…if the presentation was honest. In the scramble to obtain subscribers in the financial newsletter industry, folks with something to hide will… Read more »

Marc’s “Lightning Trend Trader” portfolio continues to sink – though I’m no longer a subscriber so can’t comment on any recommendations since 2 Jul, when I cancelled (my full refund was my biggest “gain” of all with Marc). Of the recommendations in Marc’s portfolio as of 2 July, the following reflects where they stood at end of day 17 July: EFT calls: now down -92% (his “hedge” against weakness in the biotech sector) stock: up +11.3% stock: up +5%; calls +6% stock: down -8.7%; calls down -39% stock: down -3.5%; calls down -32% stock: down -23%; calls down -52% stock:… Read more »

As of 2 July – only 2-3 weeks ago, when I cancelled my subscription – Marc had NOT recommended ANY of the stocks you list with the single exception of CLDX in his Lightning Trend Trader (LTT) portfolio. If he highlights CLDX as an example of his prowess in his LTT service, that’s completely absurd…and shameless. I believe he recommended it in a previous service, but so what? What he has done with it this year is far more significant. (The MOST prominent admonition in the business, about ANY investment anywhere – and Oxford Club uses it as well –… Read more »

Alan: I asked Oxford Club once why some stocks hyped in their promos are not always included in the respective portfolios = which one would assume would be the case – and was told they are “bonus” recommendations intended to “supplement” the actual portfolios and give subscribers more choices. I find that hard to believe (most likely pure BS) and think it’s just that such companies like Oxford Club just don’t want to take the time and effort to update their promo hype when an included stock tanks or gives any sign of not doing well – and there are… Read more »

Hi All: Sorry in advance for the lengthy post but thought I should provide a little background since I don’t expect this to be my last post (I promise they will be infrequent and shorter). I am a recent (less than 1 month) Irregular with a diverse background including a BS in Biological Science in addition to an MBA and years of the relatively easy to read Scientific American in the days when I enjoyed the pure science and R&D for its own sake. With the growth of the internet and the wealth of information online, the periodicals no longer… Read more »

Hi Thomas….you are MOST welcome here. I look fwd to your comments on KSS threads (but until he knows your credentials, he can be a little ‘dismissive’). Can I suggest you cut and paste this comment there. Im sure he keeps a villians list and feel you will be on the white list. 🙂

Alan: Thanks for the welcome. I will restrain myself for awhile on comments on Dr. KSS thread. I allowed my respect for him to get the better of my due diligence and got pulled into the whole NBY fiasco this week because I was too busy to do my own DD and it sounded like such a unique opportunity. Unlike some on that thread I am not blaming him, but I am not one to mince words sometimes, especially when I am angry at myself and I frequently find myself being misunderstood. So if you don’t see any posts for… Read more »

Ah NBY! Something to remember about Gumshoe….its NOT a tip sheet. Its an information sharing sheet which assists your DD. But I’ll agree that if one was lazy/tight for time, and just followed the euphoria, it was a catastrophe. I was v lucky. I believe most bio investors do not have knowledge/access to the science info (we are VERY lucky) so they play the FDA announcements game. So by the time the announcements made, 80% of approval is priced in. So I tend to sell just before the announcement. Ok, so I may lose 20% of the potential profit but… Read more »

Thomas: Found your comments interesting and informative – if only Oxford Club advertised its premium services something like that, which of course they don’t. It’s of course not really a “defense” of Marc Lichtenfeld in the context of this thread, which is specifically about his Lightning Trend Trader service – in which his results have been truly woeful (or at least as of 2 July when I cancelled and got a refund). He completely missed it on MannKind, Tekmira, Synergy, and others – and had his subscribers out of GW Pharma for like a 5% gain not too long before… Read more »

Observer, thanks for the feedback. I can corroborate your facts about the LTT service this year and thought I should at least do that even though I don’t want to share on this site specific recommendations that I paid the service for. I probably have some legal restriction in fine print somewhere to not do that anyway. Personally I never listen to the marketing spiels / videos from Oxford or anyone else. Its almost as if they are produced by a completely different company. I mean what is the point? If they are going to offer up these great ideas… Read more »

Thomas: Interesting comments. I don’t name recommended stocks/options from the Oxford Club services to which I subscribe until after that stock/option has been sold/expired – as you’ll see in my 17 Jul post above. For the same reason you mentioned. But I have no hesitation about naming names afterwards – exactly as Oxford Club does in its overhyped advertising: they just play up the successes for all their worth (and way beyond), while I note the downsides. I actually think Marc’s advertising for his LTT service borders on the fraudulent (and yes, I get the impression from my contacts/complaints with… Read more »

Alan: Thanks for the chuckle…you are, of course, absolutely right. I actually testified for the SEC in a related aspect of their successful case against Porter Stansbury (and had the pleasure of “congratulating” Porter by e-mail on getting his comeuppance), so I guess I was inclined at one time to think “something” might be possible — even if I know very well that expecting anything meaningful is a complete illusion. Hope springs eternal…. (There was also a case in Vermont, way back when, in which a tipster named Terry something was fined for his misdeeds – but it happens, oh,… Read more »

im new to investing with real money-on-the-line. anyone here have comment/experience with alex greens’ “golden cross” investment method?
i had heard something of this technique years ago as being popular in the orient- i never tried it, and now find it here- offered a-la alex green. what say you experienced/knowledgeable folk?

Otto: If you are still within your “money-back-guarantee” period (usually, 90 days from subscribing), the answer of course is yes, definitely. Just call up “customer service,” and it should be pretty straight-forward. While Oxford Club normally takes out a 10% “processing fee” in such cases with its “premium” services, Marc waived that fee for his Lightning Trend Trader service…or at least at the time I subscribed. (I complained about Marc’s widely exaggerated hype, and woeful results, before my 90 days were up, and had my “trial period” extended to 120 days, but still canceled, and got a full refund, at… Read more »

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